


Cold Case

by rayghosts



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Detective AU, Ectober Week 2020, Gen, Supernatural Elements, ectoberweek2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:47:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27229828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rayghosts/pseuds/rayghosts
Summary: A detective is dead. Valerie moves to Amity Park as his replacement. She meets a strange person on the road.
Comments: 13
Kudos: 99





	Cold Case

The car’s heater was broken, which meant the cold was seeping into Valerie's bones while the tires crunched ahead. Her teeth chattered as she gripped the steering wheel and squinted her eyes at the road, but the snow made it difficult to see anything. It was like staring at a blank white canvas.

Suddenly, her car dipped, pushing her forward against her seatbelt. After regaining her bearing, she stepped on the pedal, but the car did nothing but spit snow and dirt at the windshield. Great--it was stuck.

Gritting her teeth, she wrapped her jacket around herself and pulled at the door handle. She had to push hard against the snow to get the door to budge, but finally, it did, and she stepped outside the car to be greeted by the cold stinging her face. When she looked to the front of the car, she found the wheels trapped inside a ditch in the snow.

Valerie sighed, and her breath formed a cloud escaping her mouth. She moved to the front of the car, bent her knees, and put her hands firmly against the freezing steel. She pushed, putting her weight into it and trying her best to get the vehicle back onto the straight road.

“Need any help with that?”

She turned around to see who had spoken. It was a man dressed in a long trench coat. His white hair blended with the snowy background, and his green eyes were so vivid they almost seemed to glow.

Valerie turned back to her car. “I’ve got this,” she grunted, and continued with her attempt.

“Ooh, you're a strong woman, are you?” 

Valerie ignored his comment. The car rolled back two inches, then grew too heavy for her, until she was forced to let go and saw it roll back to its position. She leaned on the fender and breathed heavily. As she did, her license plate must have shown, because the strange man said, “You're from Elmerton? What brings you to Amity Park?”

Valerie took a moment to glare at him. Despite his earlier offer, he stood to the side and watched her work, not making a move to help. His green eyes watched her curiously.

“Job business,” she answered, hoping her tone was enough to convey that he was being too nosy.

It was not. “What job?” he asked.

Instead of answering, Valerie turned back to her car. She still couldn't succeed in pushing it up. The ground was too slippery beneath her.

The man stepped closer to her and the car, still not lending a hand. She huffed and side-eyed him. Up close, he looked even stranger. How did he get his hair that shade of white? And there was no way those neon green eyes could have been natural.

“I’m a detective,” the stranger piped up.

Valerie raised an eyebrow. She had to admit, he looked like one, what with the trench coat and all. But… “You can't be a detective,” she told him.

He tilted his head. “Why not?”

“Because that's the job I’m moving in here for, and I know for a fact there is only one detective job left in Amity Park.”

“Is that so?” he answered with wide eyes. “You're the new detective?”

Valerie crossed her arms. “Yeah. Got a problem with that?”

His lips spread into a small smile, and he said, “Not at all. I have a feeling we’ll be working together often.”

“Assuming, of course, that you're a real detective.”

“I’m a private detective,” he informed her, “but my agency just started, so that's probably why you never heard of me.”

“Really?” she said and narrowed her eyes. “What’s your name?”

He opened his mouth to respond, but all of a sudden, he froze. He frowned, as if he was struggling with his words--though for what, she couldn't guess. Finally, he regained control of his voice and spoke, “Phantom.”

Valerie’s eyebrows climbed. “Phantom?”

He shrugged. “Phantom,” he repeated, his green eyes digging into her. “That works as a name, doesn't it?”

It was a baffling question, yet said so casually, Valerie had no idea how to respond. 

Luckily, she didn't have to. Phantom, or whatever his real name was, must have finally decided that watching her struggle wasn't worth it, as he walked to the car and grabbed it with his hands. Then, with unbelievably little effort, he lifted the front wheels off the ground and pushed the car back out of the dent. It looked so easy, it was almost as if the steel was made of air--or he had turned it that way with his touch. The car buckled as he let go, as if its weight had returned.

Valerie stared. She wondered if he was hiding some muscles underneath that trench coat of his. “Thanks,” she mumbled.

Phantom only gave her a smile. His teeth were as white as his hair. “I’ll be seeing you, Detective Gray.”

It took a moment for her to notice what was odd about that statement. Once she did, she turned on him and asked, “How did you know my name?”

But Phantom was gone. She blinked and looked around, but he was nowhere to be seen. Not even footprints were left to indicate where he might have gone. He simply disappeared...like a phantom.

Had she only imagined him…? She shook her head, trying to push away the strangeness of the situation. She still needed to get into the city. She seated herself inside her car and, after reigniting it, drove away from the deserted patch of nothing.

It wasn’t long before she reached her destination. She parked her car outside then walked into the investigation department’s building. As soon as she stepped inside, her tension melted away. The warmth coming from the heater installed was a blessful welcome.

A thin officer whose name tag read Weston greeted her, and after confirming that she was Detective Gray, he led her deeper into the building toward what would be her new office.

“I hope you're good,” he mentioned as they walked. “The last guy was good. Annoying and cheeky as hell, but good.”

“Really?” Valerie said, not really caring. “What happened to him?”

“Well...we don’t know.”

That answer grabbed her attention. She raised an eyebrow at the ginger officer. “You don't know?”

Weston slowed his pace and looked around, as if to check that no one was listening, before leaning toward her and whispering almost conspiratorially, “For a long time, he was missing. He never missed a day, so a search party was sent out, but nothing was found. Until a few weeks ago. A scorched body was found right by the city border. Death by electrocution, they ruled.”

“Electrocution?”

Weston smiled, like this was an exciting story he was telling. “Right. Even though there wasn't any electric device or wires nearby, and there hasn't been a thunderstorm in months.”

“So...he was murdered?”

Weston shrugged. “If he was, no one was caught. It’s an unsolved case. If he were here, he would have solved it by now, but…”

“He’s dead.”

“Yeah.” He gave her a glance and added, “Hey, since you're the detective now, maybe you’ll solve his case.”

Valerie was just about to reply--probably say something dumb like “I’ll do my best”--when Weston paused suddenly and said, “Crap.”

She followed his line of sight to the desk in front of her. It was littered with items and old documents. A cardboard box sat half-stuffed.

Weston gave a sheepish smile and explained, “We were supposed to empty out his desk, but we didn’t think you'd arrive so soon…”

Valerie’s eye twitched, but she said, “It’s fine. I can do it.”

She walked toward the desk, taking in the objects on its wooden surface. There were a few model rockets that made her note that her predecessor must have been a fan of space travel. Her eyes settled on a framed photograph, and she paused.

She reached out and gripped the cold frame, lifting it off the desk. The lights from the ceiling glinted on the cover as she brought the image closer to her face. Two people smiled at her, standing side by side. The similarities in their facial structure suggested a blood relation--perhaps siblings, or cousins. One of them was a tall woman with red hair and teal eyes. The other was a man who looked...familiar.

She wracked her brain, trying to remember where she had seen him before. His eyes were soft blue, his hair raven black. His grin was toothy and lopsided. Faint freckles spread across his cheeks.

“Who is this?” she asked after her memories came up blank. Weston, who was about to leave, paused in his step and he turned back around to see what she was referring to.

“Him?” Weston answered, “The person this desk used to belong to. Ex-detective Fenton.”

Valerie's brows drew together. She was certain she had never known a Fenton in her life; yet something about him still nagged at her, something familiar in the shape of his eyes and the angle of his chin...

Suddenly, it hit her. The strange self-proclaimed detective on the road. Phantom. She hadn't realized it at first because the colors were all wrong, but replace his hair with white and his eyes with green, and Fenton looked exactly like him...except that made no sense. Fenton was dead.

“Does he have any brothers?” she hesitantly asked.

Weston tilted his head, but replied, “None. The only sibling he had is that girl in the picture.”

None of this made sense. Who was Phantom? What was his relation to Fenton? Maybe this was a case of doppelgangers, people who were completely unrelated but looked identical. But then what were the chances of them both existing in the same town, and for one to appear right after the other had died?

“Are you  _ sure _ Fenton is dead?”

Weston’s eyebrows rose high, and he asked, “Would you have his job if he wasn't? Or maybe you’d like to confirm his corpse’s dental?”

Valerie shook her head, placing the photograph inside the box. “Nevermind. It was a dumb question.”

“Don't tell me. Did you see his ghost or something?”

Valerie opened her mouth to reply, but the words suddenly caught in her throat.

Phantom. Ghost. His stark white hair and glowing eyes, his inability to say his own name, the way he had lifted her car so easily, the lack of footprints…

No way. There was no way.

“Are you okay?” Weston said, and she raised her eyes to find concern written in his features. “Geez, don't tell me you actually saw a ghost.”

Valerie briefly wondered if this was an elaborate prank, but she wrote it off. Joking about someone’s death would be in poor taste, and anyway, she would have been able to tell from Weston’s body language if he was in on it. This wasn't a prank, which could only mean…

No. She refused to believe in such a farfetched thing. Whatever Phantom was, there must be a more logical explanation than undead spirits.

Valerie huffed and told Weston, “Of course not. Ghosts aren't real.”

Right?

(The sound of electricity buzzed inside the walls. In her guts, Valerie knew this was a mystery she had to solve.)


End file.
